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"Netizen: Make an April Fool's Day joke."
Text/Du Chen
Editor/Vicky Xiao
A video about a driverless car recently shocked San Francisco residents.
The video shows a driverless taxi from Cruise, a GM self-driving company, stopped by police in downtown San Francisco.
Image source: @brad916 | Instagram
In the picture, the policeman walks to the unmanned car, but finds that there is no one inside, which seems to feel a little unexpected. He also tried to pull the door shut (but didn't really mean to open it at the time), and then walked back in the direction of his police car (perhaps to call for support by radio, or to take a flashlight or other tools for further inspection).
As a result, I don't know if the car's computer is in a bad mood, or if there is something that wants to hide, the police just turned around, it actually accelerated suddenly, "escape"!
Image source: @brad916 | Instagram
- Of course, we've put the word "escape" in quotation marks here, because it's not really that way it's gone:
The car drove past the intersection in front of it, then stopped again on the side of the road and never started again.
Seeing that this unmanned car was actually about to run, the police officer of course immediately returned to the police car and chased after it:
In the video, onlookers can be heard to understand that the car dared to "escape", shouting "Is this serious?" ”(Are you serious?)“ I'm going to finish this scene. ”(I'm gonna have to watch this.)
In the video later, at least three police officers surround the unmanned vehicle for further inspection.
Image source: @brad916 | Instagram
The video was originally posted on April 1 on @b.rad916's Instagram account. On Saturday, media personality Seth Weintraub transferred the video to his Twitter account, which has attracted nearly 5,000 retweets and more than 20,000 likes, completely detonating the incident.
From the "Venus Cafe" in the background of the picture, it can be confirmed that the incident occurred in Second Chinatown in San Francisco's Richmond district, at the intersection of Clement St and 8th Ave.
Image source: Google Maps
The footage in this video is also enough to shock the citizens of San Francisco, especially those who live nearby:
If Cruise's driverless taxis are stopped by the police and don't "obey", how can we keep our people and property safe when we encounter these driverless cars on the road (whether as passengers, pedestrians, or driving our own cars???
Full Video:
1
Netizens complained: Heartache police
Many onlookers saw this video and had the same first reaction: although they knew that this kind of thing would come sooner or later, they didn't expect it to happen so soon!
Steve Westly, former chief financial officer (auditor general) of the California government, also tweeted and joked: The future is coming!
There are also some netizens who are not too big to see the hilarity:
Some people think of the plot of "Cyberpunk 2077": in a side mission of the game, the system of the driverless rental company Dramman has a problem, the AI of some vehicles has obviously gained autonomy, some are running around the street, refusing to return to the headquarters for repairs and system updates, and some even want to "commit suicide"...
Since the original version of the video was released on April 1, some onlookers even speculated that this was not an April Fool's Day joke with everyone:
This is reminiscent of a previous "ticket-avoidance-mode" feature that Tesla released on April Fool's Day in 2015:
Vehicles can automatically turn on wipers, spray glass cleaners, and even automatically maneuver vehicles around the block when they detect police or parking law enforcement officers, so that police can't issue tickets.
There are also people who "turn" from the spit incident itself to the spit on the American police. As we all know, the U.S. police have a lot of discretion in law enforcement, and there have been incidents of drivers being shot by the police after their behavior was understood as "pulling out an unknown object/weapon".
Netizen Matthew Hessing sarcastically: a car without a driver, so that the police can not kill the driver, the plan is through!
There is also a reply below: This car is white, no wonder there is no ticket (ironic that the American police have different penalties for people of different skin colors).
2
Cruise Response: Normal operation, no ticket issued
However, the ridicule is ridicule, and the Cruise official still gives an explanation.
Netizens with good eyes found the (probable) reason why the Cruise unmanned taxi involved was stopped by the police: the incident was at night, and in the video, the chevrolet Bolt electric car modified driverless car, the headlights were turned off from beginning to end.
Cruise subsequently confirmed the situation. But the company's announcement of the event was short and didn't allay concerns:
"Our self-driving car obeyed the police's order and made a planned stop at the nearest safe spot at the intersection. An officer contacted the Cruise staff and no ticket was issued. ”
"We worked closely with the San Francisco Police Department and provided a dedicated phone number for the police to contact us in similar situations."
This statement of Cruise company has made many people feel more confused and uneasy.
The relevant traffic laws and regulations in the United States require that if a driver is pulled over by the police, he should indeed stop at the nearest safe place as soon as possible.
But in this incident, a cruise-like driverless car, which had clearly stopped, suddenly started up and crossed the intersection, creating the "illusion" of escape — and it was indeed too suspicious. Apparently, even the police did not react.
If we look at the video again, we can see why this car made such suspicious moves:
When it was initially stopped, the unmanned vehicle did not turn on the emergency lights, but only turned on the double flash after stopping again after crossing the intersection.
This seems to mean that its first stop was only because it was waiting for a red light; after the green light, it was supposed to continue walking, but because the police had approached, it may have triggered the distance sensor, and the system decided that it should not start; after the police were far away, the car may think that the alarm was eliminated and started directly.
However, we are still not very clear:
1) Why the car's autopilot system was not consciously stopped by the police at the beginning, but only started the interception procedure after crossing the intersection, turning on the double flash:
2) Why didn't the car turn on the headlights at the time of the incident, was it a fault in the vehicle circuit, or a problem with the automatic driving system? Cruise has also not given a reasonable explanation, saying that the problem with the headlights has been fixed afterwards.
In particular, the second point makes everyone feel very uneasy. That's because cruise's self-driving taxi program in San Francisco avoids rush hour traffic for safety reasons, so it's only allowed to hit the road after 10 p.m. and until 6 a.m.
Since the whole night train is not turned on, the headlights are not turned on, not to mention the tram (the sound is smaller than the oil car, not easy to be detected by pedestrians), and it is not clearly explained - Cruise's vague words inevitably make San Francisco citizens feel uncomfortable.
3
Throw the pot human driver
Self-driving companies are doing real-world road tests everywhere, and it's been five or six years in the U.S. for five or six years. Initially, many companies chose San Francisco, which has very complex road conditions, as a test site (one reason is that many companies are headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area).
Readers and friends may remember that in 2017, Uber's road test vehicle in San Francisco was repeatedly photographed running red lights. After the incident, Uber claimed that it was the fault of the safety officer who was sitting in the driver's seat at the time; however, a document leaked from within the company afterwards and was exposed by the media, showing that at least one red light incident at that time was caused by the automatic driving system itself, not the safety officer.
Later, as the Arizona government introduced fiscal and traffic control policies to attract self-driving companies, many companies, including Uber, Waymo, etc., moved the road test there. However, a fatal car accident in 2018 once cast a shadow over the self-driving road test:
In tempe, Arizona, an Uber self-driving road test vehicle hit a pedestrian pushing a bicycle across the road, killing him on the spot. In the accident, Uber's self-driving system and safety driver were both at fault, because neither of them found the victim in time and performed emergency braking (the driver looked down at the phone at the time).
Two months after the incident, Uber completely halted its self-driving road testing program in Arizona.
Image credit: ABC 15 TV
Volvo, the manufacturer of the vehicle involved, was very surprised. The company has also tested that its original Road Safety Braking System (AES) brakes completely automatically under similar circumstances. As we all know, Volvo's image is "safety", so this accident did bring a lot of blows to it at the time.
Sure enough, a later U.S. government investigation showed that when Uber modified the Volvo XC90 SUV as an autonomous road test vehicle, it cut off the connection between the original AES and the vehicle's braking system, resulting in the vehicle failing to brake in time, resulting in death.
Four years have passed since that crash, and self-driving technology has not been met with much hostility and has been further developed. Today, many unmanned cars running on the street are already real "unmanned cars", and there is no need for real people to sit in the driver's seat as safety officers, ready to take over at any time.
Moreover, the companies in question seem to be ready for commercial applications. Some companies, including Cruise, Waymo, and Uber, have launched self-driving taxi services to the public to varying degrees.
A few months ago in San Francisco, authorities just approved companies like Cruise to expand the scope of testing for the driverless taxi project. It's not just Cruise employees now, and soon the general public will be able to experience the companies' self-driving cars.
Cruise's driverless taxi program application website Image source: Cruise
However, the "confusing" incident of cruise driverless cars in San Francisco's Richmond district once again sounded the alarm for autonomous driving, especially commercial-level unmanned taxi projects:
Whether or not these self-driving companies think the technology is ready or not, they need to be more transparent and honest with the public.
END
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